Welcome! See Italy (and more) through the eyes of an artist: American sculptor and painter Kelly Borsheim creates her life and art in Italy and shares her adventures in travel and art with you. Come on along, please and Visit her fine art work online at: www.BorsheimArts.com

Pages

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Mural Project Italy

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

I have the perfect client! He not only treats me as a professional, he gives me his dream requirements and then he also allows me to interject my artistic opinion and usually goes with it. He contacted me this spring and asked for a large painting. He had the idea fairly fleshed out in his mind, consisting of three voluptuous women, Roman ruins, mountains, and a pool in which the babes would frolic. But not knowing the lingo, he said “mural.” By the time I finished asking him questions to clarify his vision, he agreed that a mural on the entire wall was much better than what he thought he wanted.

He is also ideal because he can just look at a very rough sketch of my basic idea and see past the scribbly charcoal and into the vision. Over the summer I have fleshed out more of the details and spoken many times with my new mural guru, Victor Goikoetxea. After arriving at the site of my very first mural (as a grown up, I mean, since my mother let me paint an ocean theme on my bedroom wall when I was a young teenager), I recalculated a few details in the perspective and architecture part of the designo.

My client helped me on my second day here to draw all of the perspective lines in pencil on the wall. See how perfect he is? Even giving me an extra pair of hands! Actually, I think he is quite interested in the whole art-making process and has warned me that many neighbors and guests will be dropping in from time to time to watch me work. So, this is to be more like vertical street painting! Ha.

The second day I was delighted when I was told to come see the cinghiale in the yard and caught one on “film” here. The fig trees are starting to have ripe red fruit, and the beasts want to eat them more than they want their privacy in the woods. Who could blame them? I have myself been eating the juicy figs right off of the tree!

In this last image, I tried to show you how much I have drawn on the wall. I am not that good with Photoshop and thus just ended up making the contrast higher and then darkening the image. I hope you can see some pencil marks. There is a ventilation window in the upper left part of the wall. It was a bit of a problem and a HUGE consideration when I designed the mural. I was not sure if my idea would even work, but we took a look at the sketch on the wall and think that with some embellishments, all will be lovely. Here the dark wooden door with black iron hinges has been taken off and the base coat of white paint was painted over the red brick and wood piece that creates the opening. That way, I can paint right up to the window and the illusion will work better.

I am lacking sleep these days, not just these few days, but also because I explored San Sebastian, Spain, a lot, as well as spending long days at the mural workshop, trying to learn as much as I could in half the time of the other students, who stayed for the whole month class. I even spent one night working at the atelier in an attempt to get to a point in which I could continue with the next step of oil painting. Still, I have yet to learn that while I can do anything that I want, I cannot do EVERYTHING that I want!

Thank you for reading. I am not sure if I let you know often enough how grateful I am for your interest in the art and my journey.

1 comment:

Great story sharing.Sounds like you often live in the middle of Art World.I always enjoy your words, and especially your ah--haa, you can do anything, just not everything !I know the feeling well.Thanks. Gene P.

Translate

Subscribe Now!

This is a different subscription list from Kelly's art newsletter, published from her Web site: borsheimarts.com. Kelly does not monitor or control the blog subscription list. If you would like to subscribe to the art newsletter (as well), please visit: borsheimarts.com/newsletter.htm

Search This Blog

About Me

"I am interested in the more personal moments of our lives – things we do not often share with other people, or at least, not knowingly so. I am also fascinated by the duality of our nature, especially the idea that two opposing concepts exist in a strange kind of balance. Our thoughts are expressed through our bodies. I use the elements of visual language to appeal to the senses of sight and touch while exploring these ideas, seeking the universal in the personal. I want art to be a sensual experience." - Kelly Borsheim

Since her first painting sale in October 1997 (an oil painting titled Hand Off Knee),
Kelly Borsheim's paintings, drawings, and bronze and stone sculpture are now in private
collections throughout the United States and Europe, and in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

Kelly also worked as a street painter (pastels and chalks) in Florence, Italy for about four years. Her image-filled book "My Life as a Street Painter in Florence, Italy" is available on Amazon.com in many countries around the world, as well as directly from her studios.